The downside of Covid-19 and the subsequent pandemic, lockdowns, illness, death, restrictions etc. have been played out on main stream media everyday since we first heard the name Wuhan. But has the dust settles, has Covid-19 been negative or positive for the installation sector?
Neil Cooper-Smith (Senior Analyst at Business Pilot) supplies data to the leading publications each month on exactly what is happening in the sector. One thing data is good at is seeing things objectively. You can see that in the Business Pilot Barometer that we publish here every month.
As for specifics around the Covid impact, it’s difficult to be conclusive. The growth that has been seen in the last 18-months has been exponential, but it is by definition going to be less sustainable.
What we can see is that year-on-year sales December 2021 were down 23% on those for 2020. This of course is comparing periods that were both within the ‘Covid bubble’. Go back a year further to the pre-Covid era and December 2019, and they’re 60% lower.
So, could the industry have done better if COVID hadn’t hit?
It’s safe to say that the volume [of sales] wouldn’t have been there without Covid, or perhaps more accurately, the Furlough scheme.
There would however, have been more control, and as a result, we know there will be retailers who won’t have been as profitable as they expected to be, because of the increased complexity and cost of doing business during a pandemic.
The one thing we do know for sure is that using digital tools is having a positive impact for installers regardless of the underlying economy. Remember if you are not already using Business Pilot to take on a free trial to see for yourself how it can help you to maintain profit margins and become more efficient with less hassle.
